


Sister

by houselesbian



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Aina-centric, Angst, Gen, Guilt, Love, Panic Attacks, canonical levels of torture and violence mentioned but not shown explicitly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 00:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houselesbian/pseuds/houselesbian
Summary: Heris set the world on fire, for Aina.Aina and the aftermath.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 40
Kudos: 255





	Sister

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleLinor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLinor/gifts).

> CW: this story covers what Heris did and the consequences of it, after canon. Nothing is described in great detail. Aina has survivor's guilt and has to cope with a high degree of anxiety.

Aina visits her sister two times a week. It’s always difficult to walk through the doors to the holding facility. The guards know her by name, and even though they are completely aware of every terrible thing that Heris did, they are kind to Aina. They’ve seen her weep into her hands more than once, braced on the side of her bike, in the middle of the car park. Last week, she vomited into the bushes outside and the receptionist gave her a glass of water to wash the taste out.

Aina _loves _her sister.

Her sister is a murderer. She tortured children. She set the world on fire, for Aina.

They don’t have anybody else, in the whole world.

She pats her eyes dry and slaps herself on the face. She blows her nose. She breathes in deep and slow, and out, and again, until she’s halfway back in her body.

“Okay,” Aina says. “Okay.”

She walks into the facility. The guard has her badge ready for her. She visits every Monday and Thursday, at 3pm, like clockwork.

* * *

“It’s good to see you,” Heris says.

She looks well. Her hair is longer, and she’s lost a little weight, but her eyes are bright. Concerningly, Heris’ glasses seem a little crooked, like someone bent the frame.

“You too,” Aina says.

Heris holds her hands out, hobbled by the long chain that connects her handcuffs to the table. There’s a mild, peripheral shake in her fingers. Aina reaches out and grasps their hands together.

These hands cradled Aina after their parents died. These hands made a ten-year old blind in one eye. They put bandaids on her knees, pressed buttons that turned people to ash, they loved her and then they made her culpable for the deaths of thousands. 

Sometimes, Heris can see exactly what she is thinking, as she is thinking it.

Heris pulls her hands away and clasps them in her lap.

“How’s work?” Heris asks.

* * *

Aina doesn’t tell anyone where she goes, when she visits her sister, but they know anyway. Galo’s always ready with an excuse to go for a jog afterwards, or a long ride out to Prometh’s steadily filling lake. Lucia brings her robots shaped like cute things, ostensibly to test them. Remi and Varys are much more circumspect. They sit with her, and sometimes they knit and sometimes they don’t. Ignis hugs her if she needs to cry again.

She tries to hide it better, when Lio visits, with or without Meis and Gueira. Aina feels that she doesn’t have any right to cry over someone who caused them so much pain, but she still does. If she were a better person, maybe she wouldn’t see her sister at all. She’d cut the line between them to prove that her loyalties were with the Burnish.

No one could forgive Heris for what she did, some things cannot be forgiven. If there is any justice in the world, Heris will spend the rest of her life in a prison, thinking about what she’s done. Aina wants that to happen, even as she dreads it.

There are days where she can work in the sun, carry bags of beans and flour until her arms ache and she’s so exhausted she can sleep. There are days where she’ll look at a newly restored building and feel a moment of pride, before her breath freezes in her chest, and she has to hide behind a wall until the fear and horror ebbs enough that she can stand. She starts to carry an inhaler with her. Once her lungs closed up so badly that she passed out.

* * *

Burning Rescue goes to all of the funerals. Every single one, every time a name is released. Kray had been unspeakably cavalier about his records. Every single Burnish can be traced down to a number and a complete physical description.

But not a name.

The team of people who cross-reference the numbers and the names are all brave-faced and dedicated. When a death is confirmed, they contact the families, and then they get in touch with Lio, who helps with all the rest. It is gruelling, but it gives some closure. Lio has a kind word for every person affected, he finds friends to do the eulogies for the Burnish he didn’t know.

Galo stands beside him like a sentinel, and if a foolish journalist tries to show up, he sees them off quickly. For a while, there were picketers. They didn’t last long.

Aina feels completely useless and sick inside, for showing her face at a place of grief and healing. She second-guesses every quiet moment she has. She hasn’t lost anyone; she has no right to mourn. It’s obscene to think about her own inner conflict while a husband cries for his wife. Aina is trying but she’s not getting any of it right.

On a sunny morning in spring, she sees Marco from the pizzeria, with his prosthetic hand, at the funeral for a twelve-year old girl. She slips away from the crowd, carefully expressionless, and hyperventilates behind the church. Her breath wheezes in her chest, tight and painful. She can’t get any air. She can’t breathe. She can’t see.

A hand presses lightly against her back.

“It’s okay,” a voice says.

She shakes her head. It’s not. _It’s not._

“Put your hands up if you can, over your mouth. That’s good.”

She breathes in warm air. Her hands smell like the cheap soap they use at the station.

“Breathe in with me, slow as you can, in… out… good job.”

It’s a relief to be told what to do, not to have to think for a minute.

“In, and hold, and out. In, and hold, and out.”

It takes minutes, but she can breathe again, finally. She slumps against the brickwork, her hand pillowed on her arm, exhausted. She can hear talking in the distance, over the roar of her own heart beating.

She thinks she hears, “Boss?” and the sound of someone walking away.

The hand on her back doesn’t leave. When she looks up, she sees Lio and feels incredibly ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she says, quietly.

“Don’t be,” he says.

He looks kind and softer than he normally does. His suit is cheap but tailored and it lends him a different kind of authority. He offers her an arm.

“Come on, it’s time to go inside.”

She goes with him. She’s grateful for the help. She’s not sure she could walk otherwise.

“How did you know how to do that?” Aina asks, as they walk inside.

“Galo taught me,” Lio replies.

Of course.

* * *

Later, when they’ve all changed out of their formal clothes and retired to the station, they go up to the roof and drink beer, and look at the stars. Galo arrives after the rest of them do, hand in hand with Lio, Meis and Gueira fast behind. Aina sits herself a little further away from the others. She doesn’t want to be alone, but she doesn’t know what to say.

Lio sits down beside her, two bottles held between his fingers. She puts down her empty and takes one of his.

“Thanks,” she says.

“No problem.”

They’re quiet for a while, taking sips of cold, bitter beer.

“If you feel bad, you shouldn’t,” he says, out of nowhere.

“What?” she asks.

“You were upset today.”

That ugly feeling wells inside her again.

“Please, I don’t think I can talk about it,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

She wonders if that’s all she’ll ever say or think, from now until she dies. The world’s more full of weeping. She hasn’t earned the tears.

“I don’t want to push you,” Lio says. “But… you are a friend.”

Her head snaps up. Lio is looking at her with a firm sort of sympathy. His eyes are the colour of violets and she doesn’t understand how someone so young can be so strong.

“You have a lot of people who love you. I thought it might help to hear someone say it.”

She puts a hand over her mouth. Her lips are wobbling. She doesn’t want anyone to see.

“You were there when we needed you, Aina,” Lio says. “You came as soon as you knew. We won’t forget it.”

He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes, before he stands. Aina thinks she should say something, should thank him, should ask him to blame her or mind his own business. She’s grateful. She’s ashamed.

“I’ll get Galo to come over. He’s good at hugs,” Lio says, as he leaves.

With a flick of Lio’s thumb, Galo is by her side and pulling her into his lap. He holds her like she’s a kid who needs to be comforted. He tucks her head under his chin and hums a toneless lullaby until she finally goes slack, her tension released.

She wakes up in her bunk, in yesterday’s clothes, with the blankets pulled up to her chin. There’s a glass of water and her favourite kind of candy bar sitting on the side table. Aina holds her hands over her eyes and feels embarrassed and cared for in equal measure.

* * *

The trials start. Aina goes, as a witness and a spectator. She has to sit through all the evidence and avoid her sister’s eye when she gives her own account. Lio is angry and brittle, moreso everyday. He sits in the front bench, his hands clasping Meis’ and Gueira’s so tightly that his tendons stand out in sharp relief.

It’s so much worse than she ever imagined. There was so much kept from the press, that surviving Burnish didn’t want to speak about until they had to.

Heris did it, all of it, for Aina.

Galo keeps his arm around her shoulder. He looks like his heart is breaking, every time the prosecutor says Kray’s name.

At the end of every day, security has to escort them through a writhing scrum of journalists.

* * *

When it’s Galo’s turn, the prosecutor forces him to describe how Heris came to give him his last meal. Galo throws Aina guilty looks the entire time. It’s one small thing among many. Heris knew that Aina cared about Galo. 

And later…

Heris didn’t overload the engine to save the Burnish. There's a recording, pulled from the ships computer, of a thousand agonised screams. The prosecutor shows a collage of faces of all the people who died during that final push.

Ignis stays with her that night. They were all worried that she’d hurt herself.

* * *

Aina’s heart feels like it’s turned to ash and blown away with the wind.

She used to be proud to be Heris’ sister.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some meta, so I did. Heris loved her sister and did unspeakable things because of it.  
Thanks to Littlelinor for the push!  
Edit: I realised that the ending was a little inaccurate so I changed a line (just rewatched Promare again, I have spent so much money). I do think the prosecution would argue that Heris only did what she did because of Aina, but that wasn't exactly her reasoning at the end. I don't think it's as powerful this way, but I'd rather be accurate and it's still horrific as hell. 
> 
> (Excised line because I actually really liked it: _She did it because if Aina wasn’t coming with her, then she didn’t want to go at all._)


End file.
